Rdio launches new socially integrated video service called Vdio

It's not subscription based, and it will hook you up with your friends' faces.

Rdio’s new premium video service, aptly dubbed Vdio, is out of beta and available to paying subscribers of Rdio. The service was built by Skype co-founder Janus Friis and its interface looks like someone smashed together Netflix with iTunes.

To get access, you’ll need an Rdio account. Rdio has been heralded for its seamless social integration and Vdio is no different; the service will showcase what your friends are watching and allow you to follow other users whose tastes might be similar to yours. In this manner, Vdio hopes that it will solve your "what to watch" problem.

Vdio currently allows users to rent or buy content from networks like CBS, ABC, Fox, Comedy Central, Showtime, the BBC, and NBC, as well as content from studios like Disney, Fox, Universal, and Warner Brothers. Gigaom notes that "[t]he app doesn’t actually allow users to rent or purchase content, presumably to avoid [having] to give Apple a cut for in-app purchases. Instead, it only lets users play content they’ve previously purchased on the Web."

Rdio has opened up the service to current subscribers in the US and UK and the company will offer up $25 worth of credit to its current Rdio Unlimited subscribers to try out the service, as well as anyone who subscribes in the next 60 days. The company says it will be adding new content on a daily basis.

Florence Ion
Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.

Do people really suffer from not knowing what to watch? Have we become social zombies who should be following a herd when it comes to entertainment choices? What happened to the good old days of watching an episode of something and deciding for yourself?

Do people really suffer from not knowing what to watch? Have we become social zombies who should be following a herd when it comes to entertainment choices? What happened to the good old days of watching an episode of something and deciding for yourself?

We've never been like that, not truly. In the days of yore, you watched what the office was watching, so you had water cooler talk. Sports, too.

For some reason, this article inspires me to write old-man rants about how when I was a kid, you watched whatever you could manage to find across the four or five channels you could manage to bring in. And if you wanted to watch a movie, you went to the theater.

That's it. It's official. I'm old, and I don't even have a porch, a rocking chair, or a lawn. What the crap happened? Now I'm both old and ill-equippped.

For some reason, this article inspires me to write old-man rants about how when I was a kid, you watched whatever you could manage to find across the four or five channels you could manage to bring in. And if you wanted to watch a movie, you went to the theater.

That's it. It's official. I'm old, and I don't even have a porch, a rocking chair, or a lawn. What the crap happened? Now I'm both old and ill-equippped.